Dimensional Gears

"Dimensional Gears" is one of literally thousands of student projects infesting Steam. It's from DigiPen. While student projects tend to be better quality than most "amateur" made games, we must still question what value such projects have for gamers. As with all student projects, this isn't really a fully fleshed out game, it's just the result of an academic exercise, and as such it has much more limited value as a game than a professionally developed game would have. Educational institutions should not be using Steam as a dumping ground for homework assignments (especially if the students didn't even pass the course). Sure, it helps their marketing and helps the students feel good about themselves, but this is another case of a business putting themselves before the needs of gamers. This is a real dud from DigiPen, it's a 2.5D platformer where you play as a sentient kitchen appliance. The creativity here is balanced with equal quality technical delivery, which is to say, it's abysmal and I'm not sure the students even graduated. The graphics aren't great, really low poly stuff, barely in 3D, no decent textures... really phoned in. That's understandably a turn off for a …

Dimensional Gears is a puzzle-platformer. You play as a toaster, awkwardly hopping from platform to platform, rescuing movie tickets, grabbing keys, and scooting around spikes, lava, and other hazards. Why, exactly, you are playing as a toaster is unclear - the game’s description says this is a dystopian steampunk future where sentient appliances are the only beings left, but I spent enough time as a 90s kid to know that it can’t really be a dystopia if a happy toaster is coming to the rescue - but this is the reality you live in. The impact of the story is essentially nil, with the majority of the focus being on the mechanics and puzzles themselves. Mechanically, Dimensional Gears is deceptively simple. At first glance, the happy little toaster is hopping from platform to platform, collecting keys and dodging hazards along the way. However, Dimensional Gears adds an interesting twist. While it presents itself as a two-dimensional platformer, the map the player is navigating is a three-dimensional one, visible from one facet at a time. To fully navigate it, the player must twist and turn reality, shifting which facet they’re viewing at any given point, and navigating further from…

3D perspective swap on a 2D puzzle platformer game is a really nice touch. It completely turned a boring microwave walking simulator into a very interesting and nice game. Highly recommended folks and to devs, good luck and wish you success in your careers!

I opened the game a second time after my excessive delay between playing and beginning my review; this was both to refresh my memory, as well as checking that the hard difficulty didn't harbor any extra tricks or secrets. I also never opened the credits scene which has a cute animation for the finale. In either case I never found the need to use the rotational view, but I can imagine it being an essential feature for harder levels. The game is a fairly tacit homage with regard to its core mechanic; the Land elements have been removed from that game, resulting in segmented mind mazes that offer a quicker pace, yet in spite of this presentation the lack of level selecting effectively equalizes them as linear experiences. Several levels, notably the last, were also servicing this tone by containing only key items without puzzles, where it may have been more ideal pacing to set the imprisoned friends within the penultimate level. Fez has a strangely apathetic tone, in that all characters and events are in service to playing the game at hand. In my mind, it serves as a crucial text in assessing metagames and mood denial; depending on the location, the game is played as a mazer, spotte…

Very clever idea for a puzzle game. It could really use more polish in the graphics though :(

Mi brain had a stork playing thourh dis.